Feeling Left Out, Now Harvard Law School Is Building Up Some Brett Kavanaugh-Related Shame

Kavanaugh earns a hefty paycheck from Harvard Law.

(Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

With Yale Law School taking all the hits over its shameless rush to promote Brett Kavanaugh to add another notch on its Supreme Court belt, you’d think Harvard would be content to look on with the sort of condescending contempt befitting the prestigious school. But instead Harvard realized it was now second in something else and decided to get in on its share of blame for enabling Kavanaugh.

Four students have published a piece in the Harvard Law Record pointing out that while Yale called on every ounce of its credibility and goodwill to push Kavanaugh’s nomination forward, Harvard was busy paying the judge $27,490 to provide nine days of teaching in 2018 and his seminar on “The Supreme Court Since 2005” remains on the winter schedule.

That’s not a bad haul for nine days of work. A solid three-way parlay could turn that into real money. I mean, if anyone were so inclined.

Blackstone famously said, “It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.” We agree—but this is not a criminal prosecution. We do not believe that it is better that a guilty sexual assailant be given a lifetime position on the Supreme Court than one innocent person suffer the injustice of keeping his appellate judgeship on the D.C. Circuit, and, perhaps, losing his $3,054 a day gig at Harvard Law School. The Republicans in the Senate may not care about investigating these claims and appear poised to confirm Kavanaugh without regard to the allegations against him. As students, however, we will not accept that as the end of this matter. Unless a full and fair investigation is conducted, Harvard Law School cannot allow Kavanaugh to continue teaching its students and the Senate cannot confirm him to the Supreme Court.

This perfectly tags one of the more problematic narratives surrounding these allegations — this idea that merely evaluating the accusations against Kavanaugh represents a breach of due process. It’s not really a zero-sum game. You can believe that women provide, on balance, reliable testimony on their own sexual assaults and that it’s troubling that they are systematically disbelieved and that due process still requires recognizing that the accused receives the benefit of the doubt. For some reason, people are acting as though fairly evaluating a woman’s testimony is a breach of due process rather than just bringing women up to the level the system provides every other victim. And it’s an argument entirely out of place when we’re not even talking about criminal charges.

Come on, Harvard. Is there no one else capable of giving nine lectures on the Supreme Court? For over $3000/class, Harvard could secure almost anyone to volunteer. Anthony Kennedy needs a side gig and he probably has some insights into that subject.

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What is HLS Doing About Professor Brett Kavanaugh? [Harvard Law Record]

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